This marks the first audio recording by Barenboim in his role as La Scala's Music Director.

The TimesIf you were to devise a dream casting for this most theatrical of sacred masterpieces you might well come up with Anja Harteros, Elina Garanca, Jonas Kaufmann and René Pape, plus the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, under their current maestro, Daniel Barenboim... I was blown away by this Requiem... Kaufmann's first entry was like an erupting volcano. Garanca was as mesmerizing, floating creamy legatos while mustering a thrilling chest voice that I never thought she possessed. Harteros, looking like a distressed pre-Raphaelite beauty, turned the final movement into the most sublime death scene never to appear in an opera. And that incredible chorus, with their barrel-voiced basses and wonderfully hammy rolled consonants and gasped aspirates, hurled out the apocalyptic moments as if determined to blast the roof off.

The TelegraphEven without a fully Italianate instrument, Kaufmann's honeyed, warm tone makes him exceptional in Verdi... Kaufmann's refined artistry shows that even without the leather-lunged Verdians of half a century ago, today's stars can stake their claim on the composer.